Everybody agrees that Facebook is the epitome of "modern" and is currently at its heyday. However, Facebook is just a phase and will eventually be forgotten and replaced. Facebook.com released that "50% of our active users log on to Facebook in any given day" on its Statistics page. Only half of Facebook account holders log on per day. It will not be soon before "the next big thing" releases and replaces Facebook.

I challenge my opponent to assume the Con position and look forward to a stirring debate.

I accept this debate with a few requests in the guidelines of this debate

Instead of the word phase, fad would be appropriate

Also, how long a I arguing facebook will last? I will not argue that it will last forever

What is your definition of lose popularity?

Even though this is round one so there shouldn't be an argument I will counter the 50% argument from Pro. 50% is a good number. It basically means 50% of the 750 million active users signed in today, it can be dfferent people everyday. So it is not 50% of account holders, its 50% of active users. Active user is most likely defined by the activity on their account in the past week. (verify?)

1. I accept that the word fad is appropriate.
2. For the purpose of the argument, and to coincide with the connotation of the term "fad," I will argue that Facebook will not last longer than 5 years from today.
3. A loss of popularity would be a drop in the number of active users. "An Active User is defined as a Resident who has logged into the system for longer than 1 Hour for the reported time period. Active users could include Alternate accounts, if those accounts are being used for longer than 1 hour." [1].

Decline:
Admittedly, Facebook was launched in 2004, and the number of active users has increased steadily since then [2]. However, the number will not continue to rise. Facebook will reach a climax and begin its downfall within the next five years. In 2009, Facebook was listed on TIME's 50 Best Websites list. In 2010, Facebook was NOT listed in TIME's 50 Best Websites and was not rated in the top 5 Social Media sites [4]. Other social networking sites such as Tumblr and LinkedIn are already beginning their coup to overthrow Facebook.

Trends:
In 2010, the fall of MySpace, one of the most popular social networking sites prior to Facebook, was evident after a 13 year run [5]. While MySpace ruled the industry, nobody thought it would ever lose popularity or be replaced because it was difficult to imagine. Now we live in the Facebook era. It is hard to imagine the fall of Facebook because we can't imagine what will cause it. Facebook is following in MySpace's footsteps.

It is only a matter of time before the next big website goes live, or Mark Zuckerberg gets caught up in another big lawsuit, or any other curve ball comes flying in and knocks Facebook off its high horse.

I would like to thank my opponent for his argument and response to my requests.

Decline

My opponent does not give enough evidence to support his claim that "Facebook will reach a climax and begin its downfall within the next five years." If my opponent had looked closely at Time's best websites list 2010, he would notice that Time did not reuse any of the websites it used the year before, therefore this argument is invalid. If you need proof, compare these two lists. (http://www.time.com...)(http://www.time.com...)Pro, could you offer some evidence to support the claim that Tumblr and LinkedIn will take over Facebook?

Trends

How is Facebook following in MySpace's footsteps? Could you please offer some evidence to support this? Part of the reason for the downfall of MySpace is because of how insecure it is. Children are much less safe on MySpace than on Facebook and viruses are much more prevalent, here is some proof from the "Worth of Trust" website checker, ( http://www.mywot.com.... )

I now challenge my opponent to give a good reason as to why Facebook would collapse and how.

Firstly, my opponent made an accurate observation that TIME's 50 Best Websites 2010 did not recycle any of the websites from the 2009 list. However, both lists show several other popular social media and social networking sites.

Additionally, my opponent's request of "Pro, could you offer some evidence to support the claim that Tumblr and LinkedIn will take over Facebook?" is out of context. I stated in Round 2 that "Other social networking sites such as Tumblr and LinkedIn are already beginning their coup to overthrow Facebook." I merely stated two websites of the top 5 Social Media sites on TIME's 2010 list [1].

In January 2010, only 50% of Facebook's active users log in each day. In March 2011, this statistic remained true [2].During the same time period, Flickr's active users increased 25% and now holds over 5 billion images [2]. Also, Twitter increased 233% in registered users, while Facebook increased only 183% [2]. Twitter also saw a 250% increase in the number of tweets per day [2]. Twitter now sees more tweets per day than there were in the entire month of April 2011 [4]. Furthermore, growing slowly yet steadily, LinkedIn has grown 100% in registered users [2]. Bebo is the second largest social networking site in the U.K. and continues to grow [3]. Clearly, there are quite a few contenders for Facebook's throne.

Trends

In response to Con's request regarding Facebook following MySpace's footsteps, I have already provided evidence in Round 2. Though, if it is still unclear or unsubstantial to my opponent, I would be happy to clarify. I stated earlier that MySpace had a 13-year run. Facebook was launched in 2004 [5]. 5 years from now, within which time I predict Facebook's downfall, it will have had a 12-year run. Several years before its downfall, MySpace formed its "Joint Music Venture" and made a few desperate attempts to keep users interested [6]. Facebook did similar actions such as launching FriendFeed and Places [5]. I restate that MySpace and Facebook follow similar tracks.

Regarding Con's comments on the security of MySpace, I will begin by conclusively stating that I will not be defending MySpace in any way, nor do I want the topic of the debate to shift toward MySpace. That being said, I don't see how my opponent's provided link helps to promote his viewpoints. myspace.com scored a rating of Good or Excellent in all 4 categories of security. In anticipation of my opponent's rebuttal that the ratings should be seen for their specific numerical values, I question the accuracy of the numerical ratings, for the "Worth of Trust" website itself did not receive a perfect score in 'Trustworthiness' nor 'Vendor reliability' [7]. Additionally, the specific link provided by Con does not address, compare, or present the security ratings for facebook.com, and is therefore useless to this debate.

I have now addressed all of my opponent's requests, rebuttals, and statements. I look forward to the remainder of Round 3.

Hmm, this is an excellent topic to debate. Currently, I am on Pro's side because I believe (even though I don't have an factual evidence come to think of it) that a majority of facebook account holders are teenagers who follow the fads and trends and are as easily swayed by a higher power (not a diety) much like the people of Shakespeare's Julius Ceaser. Also, it doesn't seem like there is anything beneficial to facebook that will keep users there for long that cannot be created in another trend setting website. However, it will be interesting to see how this debate plays out and see if I still am for Pro or if I have changed my mind.